


(feels like) the end.

by lexorcist



Category: Mob City
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Character Study, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Revenge, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-14 14:30:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19275226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexorcist/pseuds/lexorcist
Summary: Two years after Ben Siegel's death, Sid Rothman has grown dangerously desperate for answers. The mob is growing tired of him, and his threats against Ned Stax and Jasmine Fontaine have put him back on Joe Teague's radar in the worst way. He knows his time is running out. Everyone else does, too. [Season 02/Season 03 Speculation] [Established Ben/Sid] [Implied Ned/Joe - Ned/Joe/Jasmine].





	1. what death has touched.

**Author's Note:**

> If TNT isn't going to give me more Mob City, I'll make more Mob City myself.
> 
> This fic will explore how I (and theladiesyouhate) envision two additional seasons of Mob City in an episodic fashion mimicking the light timeline-jumping in the show. In this piece, Ben and Sid have an established but hidden romantic relationship and there is implied (for now) romance between Ned and Joe.

_ ‘tis a human thing, love _ _   
_ _ a holy thing, to love _ _   
_ __ what death has touched.    
                     - Yehuda Halevi

 

**JUNE 20, 1949  
** **LOS ANGELES, CA** **  
  
**

 

The smell is familiar- like copper, thick and heavy in the dry air, so strong Sid can taste it. It fills his mouth and his nose and he coughs at the bitter tang of that bold flavor. Flashes of soiled carpets flit across his eyelids with every blink - flashes of the last time such a stench hit him like a wall. He looks below him and finds warped hardwood in lieu of woven thread. There are no bullets. There is no smoke; no shouting, no panic, no optic nerves curved like snakes on expensive rugs. There is a trickle of blood spilling down from his temple and pooling deep and dark on the floor. There is blood, too, in his mouth. There is blood on the barren walls, sprayed in droplets like a rorschach test. 

Sid bites his tongue as he struck again.

The blow knocks him on his back and he groans. His ribs ache. His chest aches. He aches. A shadow falls over him and all Sid does is sigh a long, low exhale and he shakes his head. Two hands grab his shirt front. They are rough; angry, furious even, so tense and full of rage that they shake against Sid’s sternum. Through the thin glass of the window the moon spills silver light across Joe Teague’s face. It warps his features- or perhaps that is Sid’s faulty vision, doubled and blurred as his brain throbs inside his skull. He thinks that this man looks like an animal- like something wild, something feral, something fierce.

This makes Sid laugh.

It comes out like a choke, and then a cough, but when he spits blood onto Joe Teague’s cheek the laugh is round and full and real. It angers Joe. Sid can tell by the way Joe’s grip on him tightens and in the way his nostrils flare- monstrous, maybe- grotesque in the moonlight.

“Fuck you,” Joe growls, and he throws Sid down; kicks him.

“Fuck  _ me _ ,” Sid says, and he laughs again. He shakes his head and repeats, “Fuck me.”

“Shut up,” Joe says, and he kicks Sid again. Sid rolls into the thin stream of moonbeams struggling through the film of dust on the window. Ben, Sid thinks, would have hated all that grime. He would’ve given Sid a whole lot of shit for the dirty windows and the dirty floors and, now, the blood on the walls. Sid is stuck in this thoughts, in his imagined argument with his dead friend, when he is hit again. Joe Teague is saying something, Sid realizes. He creases his brow and he catches Joe Teague saying, “It’s over.”

And maybe it is.

It feels like it is. It feels like it has to be. And yet-

“Wait,” Sid says. A hand finds his throat and squeezes hard.

“What did you say?” Joe demands. “Did you say something to me?”

Sid struggles weakly against Joe’s hold. Joe growls and drags him across the floor. He thrusts Sid’s back against the wall so hard that all the air in Sid’s lungs is expelled in one huge gust. He tries to cough, but Joe’s strangling grasp constricts his weary throat. His eyes sting, their corners wet. The edges of his vision darken and the copper tange surges on his tongue.

“W-wait,” he stammers.

“Wait,” Joe mocks. “Wait. What d’you want me to wait for, huh? What am I waiting for?”

Sid closes his eyes. He knows he is beneath the moonlight now- away from its soft and gentle light, away from the silver haze that always made Ben look heavenly by night’s end. He can see the halo glow of the moonlight hugging Ben’s sturdy frame and it makes his fight for breath less fearful- less desperate. He wheezes a sigh and feels the muscles of his neck strain against Joe Teague’s calloused palm. He feels a shadow over him again, low and looming. There is breath on his skin and it smells like burnt coffee and cigarette smoke.

“I did it.”

Sid’s eyes open.

The room tilts and spins and he has to blink once, twice, three times to bring it into focus. Joe Teague’s face is dangerously close to Sid’s own. He is snarling and his breath falls in heavy huffs and his hand presses hard against Sid’s aching throat.

“Is that what you wanna know?” Joe asks him. “Now you know. I killed Ben Siegel.”

“You-” Sid says, cursing his own small and shaky voice. The salty sting at his eye corners spills over. It trails down his cheek. It hits Joe Teague’s hand.

Joe’s grip loosens. Sid sucks in air and when Joe lets him go he falls onto his hands and gasps and gags and coughs. Tears are falling down his cheeks and he can’t make them stop. Are they sad, he wonders? Are they of grief or relief?

Joe Teague’s shadow moves above him, but Sid doesn’t look at it. All he can hear are those words in Joe’s voice over and over again, like a broken record in his brain.  _ I killed Ben Siegel. I killed Ben Siegel. I killed Ben Siegel _ . An answer two years uncovered. A question put to rest. Sid’s heart coils and uncoils. He thinks he’ll be sick, and then he thinks he won’t. He coughs and blood comes up and he thinks the droplets spell out the words: Joe Teague killed Ben Siegel.

Sid makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He can feel Joe Teague pacing in front of him, can feel the tension leaking off of him. The rage that filled Joe seeps into Sid’s bones, but it is mixed with so much more that Sid isn’t sure what to do- isn’t sure what he’s capable of doing. He has an opening, he knows. Joe is faltering. Sid is crying, he realizes, and it has caught Joe Teague off guard. This is his chance. This is his only chance. 

“You,” Sid says. One syllable. One word.

It’s all he gets out before the gun goes off.


	2. carrying the remains.

_oh, what we could be_ _  
_ _if we stopped_ _  
_ carrying the remains   
_of who we were_   
          - Tyler Knott Gregson

 

 **JUNE 30, 1947** **  
** **LAS VEGAS, NV**

 

The room is filled with people. Bustling, one might say if one were a news reporter setting their scene. Buzzing, even. A couple walking arm-in-arm breezes past sid on their way to the concierge. A bellhop dressed in red drags a cart with a squeaky, rattling wheel toward the elevator that dings and yawns opens and spills more bodies into the expanse of the Flamingo Hotel & Casino.

Sid, for his part, stands alone in the middle of it all.

He breathes the scent of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume as businessmen and well-dressed women alike flit and flutter past him. Like bees among flowers, they start and stop at familiar faces and helpful strangers. They talk to each other. They talk to the bellboys and the kindly concierge. None of them talk to Sid. In fact, they seem to part ways around him - to diverge in opposite directions on either side of him and reconvene once they’ve met his back. He wonders if they recognize him - he wonders if they know.

When he checked off the calendar this morning and saw the round number zero gaping at him, he drew his own beneath it married to a one. _Ten days_ , he had said aloud in the empty room. Ten days gone.

“Mr. Rothman?” A stuttering voice tears Sid from his reverie. He turns to the timid young man, who pulls at the threads of his blazer sleeves in absent terror. “This way, please.”

The young man turns and begins at a steady pace toward out of the lobby. Sid lingers for a moment and watches the young man’s retreating back. He thinks about leaving, and then he lowers his chin and lets out a sharp breath and starts after the fidgeting man in his neat little blazer. He follows him until the hall empties into a dining room that is anything but modest - Ben would have it no other way, and it sends a pang through Sid to see the ornate room still untouched. He can picture Ben at its center, the heart of it all, beaming with his arms outstretched and going on some tangent about the future he would build here. But it is not Ben that Sid is led to, for Ben is ten days gone - his grave still fresh with upturned earth. Instead, it is Meyer Lanksy that greets him at the back of the room.

Meyer sits alone at a table set for two, his hands neatly folded in front of him. He does not rise when Sid approaches. He merely inclines his head toward the empty seat across from him; an offering which Sid accepts, sliding into the chair and setting down his hat.

The young man who had escorted Sid lingers- hovers -until Meyer’s curt nod sends him on his way.

“Sid,” Meyer says. Sid says nothing, and a waiter comes and pours a glass of water for each of them.When the waiters leaves, Meyer says, “How are you doing?”

“You my shrink now?” Sid sneers.

“I’m asking you a question,” Meyer says. His tone is edged, but tempered. He lets Sid’s silence drag on another beat before gesturing to the room and saying, “Benny poured a lot into this.”

“Some might say too much,” Sid says, and Meyer sighs.

“I thought we were past this.” Sid only looks away- down at his plate, at the napkin folded neatly atop it, at his hands in his lap. It is a pointed kind of avoidance, the kind of quiet that speaks for itself. Sid has behaved cooly, and purposefully so, for ten days. “I had nothing to do with it,” Meyer says. Sid is slow and deliberate in the unfolding of his napkin. He takes his time with each careful crease and the task is finished he makes the same meticulous work of placing the fabric in his lap. “Nothing,” Meyer repeats. His tone is firm and fierce. “I told you that,” he says. “A thousand times I told you.”

“You told me twice,” Sid says. He does not lift his head. His eyes do not meet Meyer’s.

“And that should be enough for you,” Meyer says, his annoyance clear in his voice. Seeing the wall that Sid has build, he switches tactics. “Has Mickey found anything?”

“Not that he’s shared with me,” Sid says. He still does not look at Meyer.

“So that’s a no?” Meyer says. Sid does not answer. He lapses back into his silence for thirty seconds, sixty, and sixty more. Tension stretches taut between them. Then, finally, Sid cuts it.

“Ten days,” he says.

“Sid.”

“No,” Sid says, and finally he raises his head. His eyes are dark and full of a fire Meyer has not seen in decades. There is rage there Meyer had only suspected could brew below Sid’s somber surface. “Ten days,” he repeats, “and we have nothing. Let me ask you something now. What does that tell you?”

“That this ain’t an easy job,” Meyer says flatly.

“Maybe you put the wrong man on it.”

“Maybe you gotta get your head on straight.”

“Look at me,” Sid says. His voice is low but dangerous. Meyer has only heard it like this a handful of times, and even so he is not sure he’s ever seen Sid hold so furious. He was filling and filling and filling and soon he would pop- a firecracker, a grenade, hot and angry and destructive. “I am the _only_ one, Meyer- the _only_ one -with my head on right.”

“You say that,” Meyer says, “but I don’t see it.”

“Mickey is sitting pretty with Ben’s empire at his goddamn fingertips-”

“I ain’t moving him, Sid.”

“Then what are you doing?” Sid demands. He grows louder the angrier he gets. A few heads have turned, then quickly snapped back around. The waiter, who had been on his way with a basket of bread for the table, diverted to a safer couple in the opposite corner of the room.

“There’s a lot else that needs taking care of, Sid,” Meyer says.

“I don’t give a shit what needs taking care of,” Sid growls.

“Hey,” Meyer snaps. “I know that ain’t easy.” Sid scoffs, and he shakes his head- in disbelief or disappointment Meyer isn’t sure, but he carries on anyway. “You think I don’t care?” he asks Sid. “You think I _like_ this? I came up with him, same as you. I built him up, Sid, and you know that. And I loved him. Alright? I loved Ben like he was my blood. Now this-” here, he gestures to the room- to the Flamingo as whole, “-disappointed me. And you know that, and Benny knew that. He left behind a mess for us, and there’s a whole lot that needs cleanin’ up around here.”

“And that’s more important to you,” Sid says. “So important you had to snatch it from him, right? His body was still warm and you’ve got guns blazing right through his pride and joy.”

“That was different.”

“Didn’t look it,” Sid says.

“I did not hurt him, Sid,” Meyer says.

“Then who did?”

“You were closer to him,” Meyer says. “What’s your theory?”

“You know mine.”

“And I said you’re wrong.”

“So Cuba was just a vacation?”

“Maybe it was,” Meyer says. “Now where does that leave us? Huh? By your count I’ve told you four times now that I didn’t do anything. So where does that leave us?” Sid is silent again, and this time it is a different kind of silence. Full of rage, yes, but now it simmers. He is thoughtful. He is pensieve. “I know you, Sid. You sight read your music. You’re always ten steps ahead of the game. I don’t know anyone else who thinks like you. Never did. So _think_. Was there anyone around him? Anyone at all? Did he piss anyone off?”

Sid’s now-thoughtful silence stretches minutes more. Then he grabs his hat and throws his napkin onto the table. He pushes back his chair as he stands, not saying a word as he turns to leave.

“You know,” Meyer says, and those two words root Sid for a brief moment.

“I’ve got a hunch,” Sid says.

“You got a name?”

“I’ll see you, Meyer.”

“The name, Sid.”

But Sid only says, “Goodbye.”

 

* * *

 

 **JULY 1, 1947  
** **LOS ANGELES, CA**

 

The first time Joe Teague sees Ned Stax again, he is standing on a street corner waiting to cross.

Joe knows that he should not approach him. He knows that he should leave Ned be, should walk away and keep on walking, to put as much distance between them as possible. He knows that Ned should not be seen with him. He knows that their meeting nearly two weeks ago was dangerous enough. He knows he should leave, but Ned is like a magnet- an opposite pole, a charge too strong to resist. Joe follows him, a hopeful dog trailing its owner down the block.

Ned spots him, too, and when he does he turns away. Joe does not want to say that it breaks his heart, but the cracks inside tell the story all the same. It fractures what is left inside and Joe chases after Ned if only to try to bandage one small fraction of that wound.

When he is close enough, he calls to Ned. Ned does not answer. He does not stop or turn around. He keeps walking, and Joe keeps following and calling his name until finally Ned comes to a stop. He lets Joe catch up with him, though he keeps his back to his old friend.

“I told you to stay down,” Ned says when Joe approaches.

“I’m doing my best here,” Joe says.

“You need to walk away,” Ned says. His voice sounds tight- Joe thinks that he is stressed, that he is tired, and that the source of his stress and exhaustion is the fallout of his own actions. He can’t take back what he’s done but he can try to set the pieces back together in some kind of way. He can try to repair the damage. He wants to try.

“Ned,” he tries, coming to stand beside Ned, but Ned lowers his head so that his hat hides his face.

“He’s back in town,” Ned says, and Joe knows he means Sid Rothman. “Flew in late last night.”

“He do anything to you?”

“I’m fine,” Ned says. “You need to go.”

“I just-”

“Gunny.” It’s the name that stops Joe in his tracks time and time again, and when Ned says it he lifts his head and lets Joe see his eyes. They are soft, almost sad, and they are pleading. “Don’t do this. You can’t. Walk away. Alright? Just walk away.”

Ned does not give Joe a chance to respond. He ducks his head back down and stuffs his hands into his pockets. He looks left and then right and he crosses the street, moving with purpose down the street, not once looking back. It takes all of Joe’s strength not to chase after him, to grab his hand and run him to the station, to put him on a train and get him someplace safe, just as it takes all of Ned’s strength not to spare one single glance over his shoulder. He sneaks one look as he rounds the corner, but Joe is lost in the ever-drifting sea of afternoon pedestrians, and Ned cannot find him.

 

* * *

 

 **JULY 4, 1947** **  
** **SEATTLE, WA**

 

Jasmine Fontaine has ridden so many trains she has forgotten what feels like to set her feet firmly on the ground. She has passed through hotels and train stations for two weeks, grabbing newspapers off of every stand she passes and searching the obituaries with her heart in her throat.

The farther north she moves, the less she reads of Ben Siegel. In San Francisco his death sat below the fold, in Portland he was a blip on page five. She knows he has been buried and that five souls came to mourn him- she thinks she recognized Sid Rothman on the blurred edge of the photograph, standing alone with his head bowed. She has heard nothing of or from Joe Teague. Ned Stax, too, has kept the papers free of both his name and picture. She hovers near postcard racks whenever she finds them, and has even bought a few- one from each city she has stopped in. She keeps them in her purse, bunched together and tucked into a side pocket, and sometimes she slips one out to write on. She has jotted short messages on so many, but hasn’t addressed a single one.

Today, she picked one up on her walk back to her hotel. She carries it in its paper bag and when she arrives at her room she sets in on the desk and begins with _Dear Joe_ , as she has with all the ones before.

Tonight there will be fireworks. There are red, white, and blue ribbons and balloons lining the streets and she has heard talk of grand displays over the water. She has been invited to watch them by a bellhop who greets her every morning and on one occasion bought her a coffee during his lunch break. His name is Patrick, and there is nothing in him that reminds her of Los Angeles. She thinks that this should make her happy, that it should be something she can look forward to- something light to break up all her worries, and maybe even settle a few. But all she can think about is Joe, and how much he hates fireworks, and how she wishes that he will not be alone when they begin to crack against the dark sky.

She tells him this in her note. She fills the postcard with well wishes and then she tucks it among the rest. Maybe one day she will send them. Maybe one day she will stamp them all and let Joe know that she is okay, that he does not have to worry about her.

Now, though, she fixes her hair. She puts red lipstick on. She answers the door when Patrick knocks, goes with him to watch the fireworks, and she tries her very hardest not to think about Joe Teague.


End file.
